Tuesday, August 18, 2009

It is rare indeed that I stumble randomly upon an internet comic artist who is so refreshing. Natalie's work is the opposite of exposition, something I have become quite bored with lately. Her comics are simple and elegant, and while not the three panel gag that typically gets emailed around I find myself happier after reading them.

Friday, August 07, 2009

The other night my wife and I were watching a truly horrid "Guinness World's Animal Records" or some-such. No, I don't remember why. It was late, and we were tired.... anyway.....

A few minutes in, during a shot of the audience applauding, I saw a woman tilt her head in a strange fashion. A couple minutes later, another audience shot showed that same woman tilting her head again during applause. It looked eerily similar to the first shot. I decided to review that shot again to find someone else in the audience that had a distinctive action, then rewind TV and see if the editors had just spliced the same audience shot in multiple times. Sure enough, a fellow in the middle rear of the audience (whom we can only describe as "special") clapped with his hands over his head, half standing and shaking his head. His performance would be very easy to identify as identical. Rewinding the live-TV using the DVR I verified that the footage was exactly the same earlier in the show. I saw three different clips used three times each during that show.

The game: be the first person to identify a repeated shot in a TV show.

Wednesday, August 05, 2009

I've been working on a new commerce site that I'm hoping to launch in September. The Black Templars Dreadnought seen here is for the store and is the sort of things I plan on selling, specifically assembled and/or converted miniatures primed and ready for gaming or painting. I will also feature some of my painted work on the site as well. The address is TableTopReady.com, which I think describes the mission well. Need a tactical squad with a drop pod for a game in 2 weeks? If I have it on the site it will be in hand and ready to ship.

If I can keep my wholesale supply chain intact I'm hoping to sell most items at around 100-120% of MSRP. So let me ask.... since there are so many discount wargaming retailers around, is it worth paying full retail to get the figures assembled (with mold lines scraped), based and primed? Maybe with a little nicety or two like the special weapon in a tactical squad magnetized so you can swap meltagun, plasma gun, flamer or bolter? One thing I've noticed on the FTW list is that you are all inspired hobbyists. Does this sound like a store that you could see buying from?

Sunday, August 02, 2009

First off I'd like to apologize for not taking pictures of the assembled "part 1" assembly. I starting building the thing and before I knew it I had the outside hull glued on. Whoops. Hopefully a written description will be enough.

Okay, so now we do the "sandwiched" portion.

The first time I built a Land Raider (without instruction I'll add) I had to cut open and reassemble the thing twice. Knowing that pieces need to be sandwiched between the inner and outer hull would have saved me a lot of heartache. Here's what you'll need:

the two little round and one rod front door linkage pieces

the two doors that meet with square "teeth"

the door piece that is a control panel one one side and a tool kit on the other

Take a look at the linkage pieces. They match the posts coming off the front door on the left side of the tank. One of them is clearly marked which linkage round piece it gets. Glue the round pieces to the door posts, but make sure not to glue the door shut in the process. DO NOT glue the linkage rod into place! Once the exterior hull is on the rod will be held firmly against the round linkage pieces and allow the door to open/close in unison.

As to the square teeth door / control panel thing, you have a decision to make. Either they can go on the gun sponson side or the access point side. It really doesn't matter. This one will be a Land Raider Crusader, so I wish I had put then on the back (to match the Hurricane Bolters) and left the front ones as unobscured access points.

When glueing the outside hull on, it's helpful to have a piece of tread from each side as a sanity check that the two hull pieces are spaced correctly.